Apple

McAfee: 

“Encryption Doesn’t Matter In a World Where Anyone Can Plant Software On Your Phone and See What You’re Seeing”

• Shale Oil Boom Could End in May After Price Collapse (BBG)
• Oil above $58 on U.S. shale output report, Mideast (Reuters)
• Ackman Says Student Loans Are the Biggest Risk in the Credit Market (BBG)
• Alibaba Disputes U.S. Group’s Claim it Tolerates Fake Goods on Taobao (WSJ)
• Petrobras takes steps to avert a technical default (FT)
• Yen’s Drop Is Approaching Its Limit, Says Abe Adviser Hamada (BBG)
• 'Slicing and dicing': How some U.S. firms could win big in 2016 elections (Reuters)
• Fed official warns ‘flash crash’ could be repeatedv (FT)

Moments ago, Tracy Sefl of the Ready for Hillary SuperPAC appeared on the Apple infomercial channel and said something confusing: "Hillary is certainly making it clear that she is running as a chamption for everyday Americans. People who are looking how to get by, get ahead, stay ahead." Unfortunately, Tracy had some significant problems defining who these "everyday Americans" are because one glance at Hillary Clinton's largest career donors reveals just who these "Everyday Americans" really are.

The now-discontinued operation, carried out by the DEA’s intelligence arm, was the government’s first known effort to gather data on Americans in bulk, sweeping up records of telephone calls made by millions of U.S. citizens regardless of whether they were suspected of a crime. It was a model for the massive phone surveillance system the NSA launched...

A man leads San Bernardino, CA police on a two hour, highspeed horse chase before being tased and beaten by officers who were attempting to arrest him for identity theft and police in Cottonwood, AZ end up in a fatal melee with a family Christian band (who officers say were immune to pepper spray, stun guns, and batons) living out of their car in a Wal-Mart parking lot. 

GE stock is down almost 13% over the last 7 years, and this is with record shares being taken off the market.  However, Jeff Immelt thinks he has a solution for this problem after 15 years at the helm of GE. 

Back in April 2013, Apple shocked the world when in a dramatic U-turn to Steve Jobs beliefs, it announced what was "the largest single share repurchase authorization in history" when it boosted its share repurchase authorization to $60 billion from $10 billion. Today, GE did its best to match this number, when it reported that as part of a massive business restructuring, it announced a "new Board authorization of up to $50B buyback." This is how it will fund it.

GM is halting production of the Chevrolet Volt electric car for the summer to whittle down about seven months of unsold inventory and smooth the way for the next generation of the plug-in hybrid sedan. Production of the current model, which costs $34,000 and up before federal tax credits, will halt early next month, the Detroit auto maker has said. It will be replaced by a 2016 model with a sleeker design and up to 50 miles range on an electric charge. That second generation Volt will go into production at the end of the summer.

This great generational injustice is the direct consequence of central banks lowering interest rates to zero and inflating asset bubbles in a corrosive (and vain) attempt to generate a wealth effect of households borrowing and blowing their newly created asset wealth. In an economy that isn't whipsawed by central bank manipulation, the difference between middle class households' asset wealth is largely behavioral, not the random luck of coming of age before central banks began blowing destructive asset bubbles as a matter of policy.

• Greece pleads cash running out, told to hasten reforms (Reuters)
• ECB Cash Said Likely to Fall Short of Greek Request This Week (BBG)
• Chinese Stock Buying Frenzy Sweeps Into Hong  (WSJ)
• Shell’s $70 Billion BG Deal Meets Shareholder Skepticism (BBG)
• Yemen's Houthis seize provincial capital despite Saudi-led raids (Reuters)
• Iran Nuclear Deal Gives Syria’s Bashar al-Assad Reason to Worry (WSJ)
• Slow apps, low battery life limit appeal of Apple Watch (Reuters)
• Gilead’s $1,000 Pill Is Hard for States to Swallow (WSJ)
• The Oil Industry's $26 Billion Life Raft (BBG)

When Will Bad News Cease to be Good News for Stocks? It is quite amazing to watch this. Even as one economic datum after another indicates that a major slowdown is underway that could well turn into a recession (keep in mind that this is not a certainty – at similar junctures in recent years, aggregate economic data recovered just in the nick of time), the US stock market continues to take everything in stride. The longevity, intensity and persistence of a bubble is per se not proof that it will inevitably continue – it is only an indication of the likely amount of pain the market will eventually dispense.

• Israel, U.S. Lawmakers Press Case Against Iran Nuclear Deal  (WSJ)
• Rand Paul tries to broaden libertarian appeal (Reuters)
• Fewer Oil Trains Ply America’s Rails (WSJ)
• Chicago voters go to polls in first ever mayoral runoff (Reuters)
• FedEx to buy TNT to expand Europe deliveries (Reuters)
• Mohamed El-Erian Has Most of His Money in Cash (BBG)
• In Surprise Move, Australia Holds Rates (WSJ)
• Oil falls as Iran, China discuss more supply (Reuters)

Because with the suddenly collapsing labor market, in which only Americans 55 and over can find jobs, expensive and superfluous Apple Watches should be a game-changer.

• Iranians celebrate, Obama hails 'historic' nuclear framework (Reuters)
• Iran Nuclear Accord Hailed as Landmark After Marathon Talks (BBG)
• Two New York City women accused of planning 'terrorist attack' (Reuters)
• Cyprus Lifts Capital Controls Two Years After Deposits Bail-In (BBG)
• Jury Hits Chrysler With $150 Million Penalty in Boy’s Death (WSJ)
• Greece says ready to make IMF payment on April 9 (Reuters)
• Germanwings Co-Pilot Set Plane to Go Faster Before Crash (BBG)
• IBM hire advisers to deal with restless investors - sources (Reuters)